


In the Dark

by more_than_melody



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Post-Ishval Civil War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Royai - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28519392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/more_than_melody/pseuds/more_than_melody
Summary: “I'm sorry I woke you earlier.”There is a long pause, almost long enough that she wonders if he is still awake. “I don't mind,” he says at last, fingers twisting tightly in the fabric of her shirt.Still, she wishes he had slept through it. Most of the time she does fine on her own.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye & Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 3
Kudos: 57





	In the Dark

_So we lay in the dark_

_we've got nothing to say_

_just the beating of hearts_

_like two drums in the grey_

* * *

Sleeping softly, it doesn't take much for her to stir. The thunder, the flash of lightning, is more than enough to wake her from a sound sleep.

Especially these days.

The window is the biggest thing in this apartment, rain battering it like hail. Lightning flashes again and three heartbeats later there is the thunder.

Beside her, he trembles in his sleep.

The storm continues to rattle the window – more than once she is afraid the glass will shatter - and for some time she lays there, waiting for sleep to return, knowing it won't. If she closes her eyes it sounds too much like other things, like the terrible dreams that wake her on calmer nights.

She is careful, quiet, so as not to wake him when she rises, fumbling in the dark for her socks, holding her breath when he stirs. He was always a heavy sleeper – something that suited him well in a life that offered little opportunity for rest – but the nightmares have done their damage there as well. It's why he's here, isn't it?

As she moves Hayate looks up at her from his bed on the floor but he doesn't move, just checking. She finds her sweater scattered amid various other things on the floor and pulls it over her head, the soft red yarn comforting, the large, loose sweater one of the only things she has left from her childhood.

The only thing she has left of her mother, certainly. Her father left her with a different heirloom.

It is nearly winter, and the cold has already sunk deep into the city – the cheap laminate floor is icy and the radiator hisses angrily. There was a time – so long ago – that the cold would have bothered her, but now she welcomes it. Same with the dark.

She moves through the kitchen without turning on a light. The tea kettle is where she left it, the ceramic mug clean in the kitchen sink. Then she waits for the water to boil.

It isn't long before she hears him, moving slowly down the hall as though half asleep.

He doesn't reach for the light switch either – it is easier for both of them to breathe in the dark. Wavering light from the street lamp outside the window catches the planes of his face momentarily before he joins her at the table, yawning.

He doesn't ask why she is awake at who knows what hour this is either – he understands. The storms raging is quieter in here, the window facing the opposite direction but there is still the flash of lightning, the thunder still cracks.

He reaches out, fiddling with a loose thread in the cuff of her sweater.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

She meets his eyes, still half shut with sleep and he smiles just a little.

“Stupid question, I know.”

Still, he leaves off worrying at the loose thread and takes her hand, placing it in his own, thumb moving gently over her palm. Beneath their hands the worn wood of the table, the two of them just breathing quietly in the dark. It not as though every night is like this, but this is a place they have both been before.

“You should go back to sleep,” she says when the silence has stretched on long enough. “Tomorrow is going to come early.”

He just gives her that look – even without a light she can tell - and she sighs, taking a sip of her tea.

“Don't say I didn't warn you,” she murmurs.

“I can hardly go sleep in your bed and leave you out here -”

 _To face this alone._ Because that's what this is about in the first place.

In another lifetime they had watched summer thunderstorms roll over from the front porch of the old house, watching the wind ripple over the lawn and waiting for the hammer of rain on the rooftop. Its different now.

“You used to love rainstorms,” he says. For a moment a flash of lightning flares through the kitchen and the air cracks – _like the snap of silence in the air before the fire._

He flinches, clutching tighter at her hand for a moment, the length of two heartbeats.

“So did you,” she murmurs.

It is not the storm they are afraid of.

He releases her hand and she pulls it back, wrapping her fingers around the warm mug in her hands. He laces his own fingers together, gripping tightly.

“It's going to snow soon,” she says. It's meant to be a reassurance – snow is such a gentler sound.

“Next week, I saw,” he says. “I'm not ready -”

Outside the window there is an explosion of sparks -

She flinches and the street falls dark, power failing, the light a bright afterimage in the sudden black of the kitchen. It lingers, her heart pounding. She turns away from the dark street and he is still staring out the window, gripping the edge of the table for dear life.

“Come on,” she says, setting aside her empty mug. “It's too cold out here.”

She stands. In the dark, her hand finds his shoulder.

  
  


Hayate is waiting when they return, watching as they pick their way across the room.

Her bed is cold and it still takes a while for their shivering to subside, for their hearts to stop racing. They lay there, huddled together as the storm wears itself out. The rain, gentler now, sheets down the windowpanes, not quite freezing.

Moonlight cuts through the clouds, glancing off his cheek, her shoulder, pooling on the floor - only for a moment and then the clouds shift and it's dark once more.

The darkness is a relief. She can feel his breathing slow with the rain, steady at her back.

“Roy?”

She is surprised when he answers, sounding half asleep again.

“Hmm?”

“I'm sorry I woke you earlier.”

There is a long pause, almost long enough that she wonders if he is still awake. “I don't mind,” he says at last, fingers twisting tightly in the fabric of her shirt.

Still, she wishes he had slept through it. Most of the time she does fine on her own.

He is silent so long after that she is sure he is asleep until he heaves a sigh and shifts, unclenching his hand from her shirt and placing one palm, warm and solid against her back.

“Did you change your shampoo?” he asks, voice muffled, face pressed into her hair.

“Mmm. They were out of the kind I like.”

“It smells nice.”

“I'll be stuck with it for a while.”

More silence. A halfhearted gust of wind rattles the windowpanes again.

“How long do you think the power will be out?” he asks.

She shrugs one shoulder. “Not past morning,” she murmurs.

“Pity.”

She smiles a little at that. “You should sleep.” Sunrise can't be too far off. She wasn't wrong earlier – morning is going to come far too early, followed by a long day.

“So should you,” he says.

She does.

  
  


This time when she wakes it is to a room diffused with golden light, a window glazed with ice.


End file.
